


Watch me crawl from the wreckage of my silence

by PatternsInTheIvy



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, Trust Issues, sandbox, well some of it at least, writing challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29016003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatternsInTheIvy/pseuds/PatternsInTheIvy
Summary: In the last week of Jack’s tour in Afghanistan, his EOD tech starts to act weird—well, weirder—and Jack decides to find out why. As it turns out, there is a lot more than he imagined behind MacGyver’s distant and silent behavior.
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 49
Collections: /r/FanFiction Prompt Challenge #21 / January 2021





	Watch me crawl from the wreckage of my silence

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! 
> 
> This was written for the Prompts Challenge on r/FanFiction. I used the prompts “gen fic” and “beginnings”.
> 
> The title was stolen from the song _These Walls_ by Dream Theater.
> 
> Don’t let the very brief reference to The Ghost fool you: this fic has no plot whatsoever.

There was something wrong going on with MacGyver.

Sure, Jack thought that every EOD tech had some sort of weird thing going on—that came with the job, right?—but most of the time he meant that in an only half-serious way. And yes, Angus MacGyver was a bit weird all around, a bit quiet, kind of like an old soul and all that. But these days, it looked like there was more to that.

He was quieter than before.

Usually, he wasn’t shy to answer Jack’s sarcasm in kind or to go on lengthy explanations about the physics and chemistry of explosions. But God forbid if Jack tried to engage in any sort of conversation that didn't involve work—that would have him giving one-syllable, mumbled answers—or worse, shrugs.

But in the last week, it was taking more to get him talking at all. For example, today Jack had purposefully said that the strength of an acid was directly connected to the danger it presented—come on, Jack remembered that stuff from school—and waited for the lecture on chemistry to follow, but all he got was a snort.

At first, Jack thought that maybe the whole thing about their first meeting had to do with that… but the thing was: MacGyver didn’t really mingle with the other guys either—the ones who hadn’t got into a fist-fight with him, that is—so Jack wasn’t sure how much of MacGyver’s silence had to do with their fight.

And it wasn't like MacGyver was one to hold grudges, right? He'd saved Jack's life in a situation that no one would have blamed him for walking away. That made it hard to believe that he would act the way he did because of a grudge.

On the topic of MacGyver being weird, there were also other things that were not about his behavior exactly, but about the entire situation surrounding him. Apparently, he had dropped the fucking MIT to join the Army. That was the sort of decision in character for someone who scampered off to find IEDs based on hunches, sure, but all those things, put together, were weird. Most people MacGyver’s age were inconsequential in other ways.

Jack had noticed that early on, but that hadn’t exactly bothered him until now. After all, MacGyver _was_ a know-it-all who did not have a single self-preservation bone in his body, and who annoyed Jack to no end, _especially_ because Jack had to keep him alive. But, well, he _also was_ the only reason Jack was alive and five days away from seeing Texas again.

Less than two minutes on the timer on that bomb, and MacGyver hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t even considered another option. _You watch my back, I watch yours_ , he’d said.

And well, that did kind of impress Jack, and he didn’t want to leave Afghanistan without knowing more about MacGyver. What the man had done wasn’t the sort of thing Jack would forget soon, or ever. It wasn’t the first time someone had saved his life, of course, but there was something about MacGyver rushing into that room when Jack told him he’d stepped on an IED, and then deciding to stay there despite Jack telling him to get the hell out that just… got to him.

He’d had many opportunities to give up and walk away, but he didn’t do that. _That_ was probably the reason why Jack was impressed.

And it might be some sentimental stuff, but Jack would rather go back home knowing that, while MacGyver and he weren’t friends, they had overcome that initial animosity—which, _yeah_ , Jack kind of realized now that the whole thing _might_ have been more his fault than MacGyver’s… but that wasn’t important now.

So far, the whole “finding out what was wrong with the bomb nerd who’d saved his life” mission was proving to be like pulling teeth, but Jack Dalton wouldn’t admit defeat in face of that.

Today had been an uneventful and boring day, with a total of zero IEDs found, so he figured this would be the perfect time to try and get MacGyver to talk. Besides the thing about being in a war zone and all, there was no reason for additional stress, or at least, none that he could identify—if that was what was causing MacGyver’s strange behavior.

Jack had looked for his EOD tech during dinner but had had no success. A few guys invited him to play poker after they'd eaten, but he begged that off and went on his search for MacGyver. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to locate him back in the barracks.

MacGyver was sitting on the floor, near his bunk, legs stretched in front of him and a book in his hands.

“Hey, Carl’s Jr,” Jack said, “what are you reading?”

A twitch of his arms was the only indication that MacGyver had heard him, and really, that behavior was starting to really annoy Jack, but before he could open his mouth to make his irritation known, MacGyver turned the book cover so that Jack could read it.

“Chemical Principles, by,” he squinted to read the author’s name, “Peter Atkins. This your idea of a light read after dinner?—not that you were at dinner, by the way.”

“It’s basic chemistry, _it is_ a light read.”

“I see. Well, as long as that serves you in stopping a bomb from getting us blown up.”

“Yeah,” MacGyver said and then went back to reading the book.

Jack stood there, and the other continued to read, doing a very good job of ignoring Jack’s presence.

“Ok, MacGyver, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

MacGyver closed the book with a loud noise and looked at Jack, “there is nothing wrong with me.”

“Really? Because you’ve been quiet lately, and I never thought I’d say this, but I preferred when you decided to pretend you are some physics teacher or whatever and talked my ear off when I butchered some science concept.”

Frowning, MacGyver stood up, threw the book on his bed and strode out of the room, almost bumping into Jack when he passed by the door.

“Hey!” Jack called, voice raising, “where are you going?”

“As you said,” MacGyver turned to Jack, but kept walking backward, “I wasn’t at dinner, so I’m going to find out something to eat.”

And then he turned away and broke into a jog, turning around a corner and disappearing from sight.

Jesus, what the hell was that?

** ** ** **

In the last four days of his tour, Jack didn’t have much success in finding out what was MacGyver’s problem. That behavior continued, and despite how much it unnerved Jack, he didn’t continue to press the issue. Soon he would go home, and some other overwatch would have to deal with a moody EOD tech.

Yeah. About that, though…

The first time _the thought_ crossed his mind, Jack reckoned he was going crazy, but… well, the idea of going home and leaving MacGyver behind just bothered him a bit. But that was all, a passing thought.

No scrawny know-it-all would stop him from going back to Texas.

** ** ** **

“Fuck,” Jack muttered as he signed the paper.

He couldn’t believe he was doing this, but, apparently, leaving MacGyver behind bothered him a whole lot more than he cared to admit.

“Are you sure about this, Dalton? We can still pretend this didn’t happen,” the officer said.

“I’m sure, sir.”

** ** ** **

The first few days of Jack’s extended tour went by in a similar way to the last week, but little by little, MacGyver returned to his normal self, and now, two weeks later, the EOD tech was pretty much like he was at the beginning.

Until today.

They were returning to base, it was already dark, and silence reigned inside the humvee. It had been a less than ideal day—to put it mildly—and they’d had a close call with an IED, one that MacGyver had thought he’d disarmed, but that had a secondary mechanism which almost was their downfall. Fortunately, MacGyver noticed the problem in time, and was able to disarm the bomb, but not before the timer connected to the secondary triggering mechanism reached single digits.

Strangely enough, Jack thought he was the one who’d been calmer in the immediate aftermath—and to be honest, even now—because as soon as MacGyver had burned the last wire attached to a plate, and they both saw the digital clock stopping, he almost collapsed on the floor, and for a few seconds, before he came back to himself, Jack had thought he would have a nervous breakdown. Since their—Jack’s—last close call, it became easier to trust that, whatever happened, MacGyver would find his way around any IED.

Now, on their way back, MacGyver looked… well, he wasn’t a very expressive guy, but Jack thought that he still looked shaken by what had happened. He had a distant look in his eyes and kept staring at his hands the whole trip back to base. Jack had to remind himself that the other hadn’t been through countless life and death situations—and that the first few times had been, indeed, tough.

When Jack parked the humvee, MacGyver did not make a move to get out, and it was only then, when his EOD tech started to talk, that Jack understood that he wasn’t only shaken by today’s near-death experience, that there was more to it.

“You shouldn’t have signed up for another tour,” MacGyver said, still looking at his hands.

Jack froze at that and kept only staring at MacGyver for a few seconds. What sort of bullshit was that? What had brought this on?

“Well, like I said, I thought it was the right thing to do, MacGyver. You don’t get a say in that.”

“Don’t I?” MacGyver replied, raising his head, an angry frown on his face, “I say I do. I don’t want to get you killed.”

“MacGyver, look. _If_ that bomb had exploded today, it wouldn’t have been your fault, it would have been the fault of whoever put that IED there!”

Shaking his head, MacGyver turned away, “yeah, like Peña wasn’t my fault?”

“Your training officer?” Jack asked, “look, we both know what an asshole I was being when I said that.”

MacGyver shook his head and gave a half-hearted shrug, “that doesn’t make it a lie.”

“Doesn’t make it a lie…” Jack muttered.

Goddamn, Jack got what he wanted, MacGyver was talking, _finally_ , but oh boy, he was starting to realize that maybe beneath all that silence there was a lot of stuff bottled up, and that part of them might come to light now. He wasn’t sure what had started MacGyver on talking, but Jack was going to make good use of the opportunity.

“Look, Dalton, all I’m saying is that you should have gone back home to your family. Whatever reason you found to stay, well, it’s not worth it, okay?”

And then MacGyver opened the door and left the humvee. Jack reacted quickly and went after him, running a bit and stopping in front of the other.

“What the fuck are you talking about, MacGyver?”

“Exactly what you heard. That you made a bad decision, and you should have gone home, your family must miss you, and you must miss them, and I don’t want to g—”

“To get me killed, yeah, I got that part,” Jack paused, pinching the bridge of his nose and then spoke again, “what about you? Is it okay if _you_ die here?”

MacGyver shrugged.

“Do you think it was the first time I almost died? I stopped counting after the tenth one, and that was a long time ago. If there’s anyone who seems a bit out of place here is you, MacGyver. Seriously, why did you enlist? I know you dropped MIT to come to a war zone, who even does that?”

MacGyver looked away and started to walk again, but Jack kept putting himself in front of him. Really, did he think that he could say all that stuff and simply walk away?

“Answer me,” Jack said.

“Someone wh—” he stopped abruptly, shaking his head and giving Jack a humorless smile, “you know what? Forget it.”

Forget it? Well, Jack wasn’t going to do that. This whole thing might have to do with the way MacGyver behaved, and now he was getting to the end of it.

MacGyver was already walking away, so Jack went after him and put a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to stop and turn around.

“I already signed up for another tour and your opinion won’t change that. But if we are doing this, we’re together. You need to start communicating with me.”

MacGyver snorted, “you want me to talk, is that it? _Fine_ . To answer your question: someone who sometimes went to sleep wishing not to wake up and thought that they might as well do something useful—that’s why I decided to enlist,” he just said the words quickly, and was breathing in harsh pants by the end, _“there_. Happy now?”

He pushed at Jack’s chest with a huff, but Jack kept the hand on his shoulder, holding him there—otherwise MacGyver would surely bolt out of there.

Whoa. _Shit_. Jack hadn’t quite expected that, and he admitted that he didn't feel prepared for the conversation that would follow. However, he also had a very good answer for that, one that he didn’t even need to think about.

“So you’re telling me that the whole thing about not seeing lost causes was bullshit?”

MacGyver opened his mouth to reply, then snapped it shut and looked away. He had a look on his face that Jack had seen before; a distant, sort of vacant stare that said that although MacGyver was there, his thoughts were in a different time and place.

_Whatever reason you found to stay, well, it’s not worth it, okay?_

“Or that you think you are one?” Jack continued, prompted by the silence and by MacGyver’s earlier words, “because you aren’t, okay?”

And there it was, another expression. Half annoyed, half disbelieving, a small frown a twitch of his nose. It was the look reserved for when Jack said something weird or intentionally butchered a scientific concept while MacGyver worked on an IED.

That told Jack that he was right, that MacGyver saw himself like that, and Jack had no idea of what sort of thought process would get someone such as MacGyver to think like that. Although, given what he’d just said, that wasn’t really surprising.

“You don’t know that,” MacGyver paused, his hands closing and opening again, “look,” he said, expression serious and earnest, “you don’t have to worry about me, ok? I won’t mess up my job, I assure you. Today was just a slip, it won’t happen again.”

 _Jesus fucking Christ_.

Jack wasn’t worried about that. MacGyver was so smart, but apparently, this conversation was not something that he was able to deal with, and he was misinterpreting everything.

“That’s not what I’m worried about, MacGyver. I’m not worried about whether you’re going to make a mistake and blow us to kingdom come. I’ve learned to trust that you know your shit. I’m worried about _you_ ,” he shook MacGyver by the shoulders.

“Yeah, right,” MacGyver said, rolling his eyes, “you don’t mean that.”

“I don’t mean that,” Jack repeated harshly, “well, I know what _I_ am thinking better than you do—”

“And _I_ know myself,” MacGyver interrupted, again pushing Jack away, this time with more force, “I know that no one stays, one way or another, so you should have just left. What you did makes no sense,” he broke off Jack’s grip on him and strode away.

Oh, and now it finally made sense why MacGyver had been acting strangely in the last days of Jack’s tour. It made _a lot_ of sense, but it would have been the last thing to pass through his mind. For all he knew, MacGyver couldn’t wait for Jack’s tour to end. But he’d been wrong.

“From where I am looking, it makes a hell lot of sense,” Jack shouted as MacGyver walked away, “even more than before!”

There, he got a glimpse of what had been bothering his partner, but Jack didn’t think that right now he would be able to make MacGyver see reason or to talk.

Yeah, definitely there was a lot more to the silence and the aloofness.

Jack had told MacGyver that he’d stayed for his country, which, yeah, was sort of bullshit. Sure, he could see that the other was one hell of an EOD tech, one of the best, and that there was a pragmatic gain to be earned from keeping him alive. But even then, Jack hadn’t _really_ stayed because of that. He’d stayed because the idea of MacGyver staying and ending up dead because his overwatch refused to follow him during one of his hunches didn’t sit well with Jack.

Now, though, he was even more certain that his decision of staying had been correct.

** ** ** **

On the next morning, MacGyver entered the humvee at what was the last minute possible without being late. Jack had decided not to push any conversation immediately because they had an entire day of work ahead. MacGyver, however, kept glancing in Jack’s direction in what he probably thought was a subtle and discreet way but that was anything but. He was fiddling with paperclips, which wasn’t uncommon, but instead of the usual mini metallic sculptures that he usually did, today three paperclips had already been victims of MacGyver’s tension, ending up shapeless and tossed out of the window, into the desert.

They checked two villages for IEDs, and on the second one, they ended up finding an unassembled bomb and a lot of chemicals that would surely be used in other explosive devices. The orders from the base were to return with those as soon as possible, while another team would be sent to check the rest of the place.

“Can we forget what I said yesterday?” MacGyver asked suddenly, when they were almost arriving at the base.

Jack had been expecting something like that the entire day. With everything he knew from MacGyver, including the newfound information, he’d figured that the other would want to just brush things under the carpet. He had pondered on how he would act from now on, and had decided that an indirect approach would be the best one. Confrontation was clearly something that wouldn’t work.

Moreover, Jack had replayed MacGyver’s words dozens of times since yesterday. The issues there weren’t ones that he could just solve with reassurances and words.

“Well, I won’t forget what you said,” Jack said, eyes on the road, “but I ain’t gonna talk about it if you don’t wanna,” he gave MacGyver a quick look.

“Good,” MacGyver said, “ because I don’t.”

That was fine with Jack. For now, he could talk for the both of them. Besides, at least now he had a better idea of what sorts of things most likely went on MacGyver’s head when he got all quiet and withdrawn.

He would just need to be there to pull him out of those places.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts if you want to leave a comment :)


End file.
